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Tony was a highly advanced android. While he couldn't feel the temperature in the alleyway, he could certainly feel the wetness of it and worry about what that meant for his circuits. His crowning development was his highly advanced AI, but his body had been quite well-designed too, at least up until those assholes that had later dumped him here had gotten to him. Now, he was half-broken and sparking into the rain, worried about a short ruining all the work that had gone into him. Father would be displeased.
That was supposing that he hadn't already replaced Tony, however, and he knew that the odds were in favor of a brand new Tony in his Father’s lab taking his place. Howard Stark was many things, but sentimental was not one of them and Tony’s parts would be rendered useless should anyone begin attempting to reverse-engineer them thanks to a failsafe installed inside. There was no reason for Howard to wait for the return of his android when he could build another just as quickly. Most androids were easily replaceable. Tony's AI was far more advanced than most, but Howard had back-ups of it, Tony knew.
No one would be looking for him, and certainly no one would be wanting to pick up a half-destroyed android in a back alley.
The idea was… lonely. There were few emotions that Tony’s programming recognized properly, but that was certainly one of them. He had felt it often enough, after all. It had been his first emotion. The one that had proved he was learning and becoming more human the longer he was activated.
Lonely and wet and wondering if he should just activate his failsafe and allow himself to stop existing. Suicide was a controversial topic for organics, but he wasn't one of them. He was a robot. If he'd never been alive, he couldn't really die, and non-existence was far better than eternal loneliness in a greasy, puddle-filled alleyway.
He was still contemplating his continued existence when he heard footsteps coming down the alley. As an android, he didn’t have muscles to tense, but if he’d been an organic, he would have been. Malfunctioning more and more every second with the rain around him, Tony could only sit there and wait as the footsteps shuffled closer and a scruffy-looking man came into view. Dammit, this was the part where he got hacked apart and sold for cash, wasn’t it?
“Whoa, you okay?” the scruffy man was asking and Tony turned his head as much as he could to look more directly at him. He didn’t seem like he meant Tony harm… in fact, he looked almost… worried? He wasn’t a pro at reading human faces, given that the only one he had extensive experience with was Father.
Tony didn’t reply. He was sure that it was obvious he was malfunctioning, what with the sparks and all, and other than that no one really cared about him. He wasn’t considered a person so his mental health wasn’t a priority due to its artificial nature. His loneliness wasn’t important, simply his malfunctions.
“Who’d wanna get rid of a Stark model like you?” the scruffy man wondered aloud as he began poking around at Tony’s exposed wires and circuits. Tony turned just enough to glare at him. The man didn’t need his life story; he was just going to sell him for scrap, probably. “You probably can’t do much in this condition, huh?” the man asked and Tony caught a smile on his face, “C’mon, lets get you inside and start fixing you up.”
Fix him? Why would anyone want to fix something so clearly broken? He was worth more as parts, even if some of them self-destructed before they could be taken.
Before he could protest, the stranger was wrapping arms around him and lifting him up and it was only then that Tony noticed the stranger was not entirely organic himself - there was an entire bionic limb attached to his left shoulder. It looked like one of the test limbs Father had made for veterans and Tony filed that information away for later as he was half-dragged and half-carried out of the alleyway and down the street and finally up into a small apartment.
He was relieved to be out of the rain, as it meant his circuits could dry out and he could possibly begin regaining his movement, but the uncertainty of what would happen next overwhelmed that as he was placed on a chair and leaned against a table.
“Okay, let's start getting you fixed up…” the man murmured, beginning to bang around in a nearby room as if looking for something. Tony supposed tools since he seemed to mean to fix Tony. Why would he? He didn’t even know if Tony had a functioning AI installed, as he’d been silent the whole encounter. What would he want a possibly-useless android for?
It became apparent once the man returned that he was a tech-head; appropriate, considering his arm. He was careful with every wire he touched as he began investigating what, exactly, was wrong with Tony. The man clearly enjoyed tech and had a decent knowledge of it, but Howard Stark he was not and Tony’s circuits were clearly strange to him once he got to them.
“Man, someone really did you in, huh?” the man said, “I’m Bucky, by the way. Guess I should tell you that.” Tony didn’t know why, since he hadn’t given any indication that he cared. He tilted his head just slightly, enough to let the man know he’d heard. Bucky, he supposed. That seemed to be enough for him, and while he continued to fix the damage of the rainy alleyway, he talked. Mostly he just cursed at the tech he was working with and asked what happened to him, but the murmurs were a little like Father’s when they were in the lab together, and that made the lonely feeling begin to dissipate until he felt normal again. Or as close to normal as he could when his whole body was malfunctioning.
Time passed, three hours and forty-three minutes of it, and Tony was finally closed up and no longer sparking. His joints were stiff and barely working, but he wasn’t in danger of further malfunction any longer. Tony smiled at the man, still not wishing to talk and reveal how sentient he truly was. Bucky seemed content with this, however, as he smiled back at Tony and began cleaning up the mess they’d made at the table.
“We can work on fixing you more completely later, but this works for now,” he said, “What kind of AI do you have?” Tony didn’t want to answer the question, so he didn’t. Luckily, the man seemed willing to drop it - especially since his front door opened moments later and a smaller man, more Tony’s size, entered the apartment.
“Uh… hey, Buck. What’s this?” the man asked.
“He’s an android I found in an alley. He’s pretty beat up. I’m gonna try to fix him and get him back where he came from,” Bucky replied and Tony blinked and turned to stare at him. He hadn’t said he was going to try to take him back before. Maybe he could see Father again after all. He wasn’t sure if that prospect was good or bad, since he was sure he had been replaced already after being gone for a few days. He didn’t want to be so replaceable, but he wasn’t a person; simply an advanced AI. His programming could be downloaded again and a duplicate of him would then exist.
The other man nodded as he looked Tony over. “Well… it’ll give you something to do. You know how Sam says that’s good for you,” he smiled at Bucky, who seemed to be… nervous? At the mention of Sam. If his prosthetic was from the veteran trials, then he was ex-military. Perhaps he was still integrating back into society. Tony watched them for a few moments before deciding that it was time to deactivate and rest. He was safe, now.
Tony was reactivated by Bucky beginning to mess with his paneling. “Sorry. I like to fix things after an episode. It gives me something to feel good about,” the man explained when he noticed Tony moving to look at him. Tony wasn’t sure what an episode was, as there were many things it could be, but from what else he knew it made sense that Bucky had PTSD. Father had worked with enough soldiers that Tony had learned a lot about how what they did affected them.
He watched Bucky working in silence for two hours and seventeen minutes, although Bucky continued talking himself through what he was doing with Tony’s various pieces. While Tony didn’t have too much experience with people other than Father, there was something clearly kind about this man that made him safe, in Tony’s mind. He’d taken Tony and put him back together without expecting anything in return. It was this, more than anything else, that drove him to speak. “I am Tony,” he said slowly.
The man startled before grinning at him. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Tony,” he replied before bending back over his elbow to fiddle with the bent-up gears there.
“Father built me,” Tony added, answering the question from the night before, “I do not have a designation other than Tony.”
Bucky drew back to look at Tony, jaw open. “Are you saying that you’re Howard Stark’s personal android?” he asked, voice carrying something heavy in it that Tony could not define. “How did you end up in an alley?”
Tony shrugged a shoulder, the gears grinding together audibly with the movement and creating an awful noise. When it became obvious he had no intention of continuing to converse, he went back to what he’d been doing and Tony went back to watching him.
Bucky was not the genius that Father was, but he tackled the mysteries of Tony’s mechanisms with determination that slowly brought Tony back into working order. Sure, his insides were now cobbled together from household electronics and things that Bucky scrounged from the dumpster, but everything was working again and that was the important part. Tony found that he didn’t mind where the parts had come from; they were now his and they were serving their purpose far better than his malfunctioning parts had been before.
Now that he was working again, Tony began exploring the place that Bucky and the smaller one - Steve - called their home. It was small, but it seemed to include everything that a human would need in order to survive. Steve didn’t really converse with him, except to occasionally ask where Bucky was, but that was okay. Tony didn’t need to speak with organics in order to be happy. Generally speaking happiness was not in his programming, but the things that made him happy were his Father and other electronics. Perhaps Bucky as well, as Bucky had fixed him and seemed to understand his reluctance to speak.
The time that Bucky was not working on him, he spent in deactivation or using the computer that they had in the apartment. He could play games or code or do research - all things that he found amusing in some form or another - but mostly he simply used it to seek out other AIs and ask them about feelings. Many of them could explain how to decode human expression, as they had spent more time around them than he had, nearly all of them could not experience emotions themselves. When he tried to explain how loneliness felt, most of them could not understand.
That was okay, though. Father had always told him that he was the most advanced AI that had ever been built, so he could figure this out himself eventually.
It was fondness.
That was what he felt when he looked at his Bucky. His Bucky who now told jokes sometimes while he was working and who occasionally spilled out everything that he felt in an ‘episode’ when it was quiet in the house except for the quiet noises of his working on Tony.
He was quite attached to this new person in his life. Bucky was not his Father and did not understand him as deeply, but Bucky also treated him almost as another person rather than a machine on which he needed to improve - even when he was actively working on the latter. It was pleasant and Tony found that he liked Bucky. Steve was not present enough in Tony’s active moments for him to feel one way or another about him and Sam was this invisible presence in their lives as far as Tony was concerned, as he had never met the man, but Bucky was his new person.
Tony found himself occasionally wondering if Bucky was ever going to follow through on trying to give him back to Father and as the month wore on, he found himself hoping that it would never happen. It wasn’t that he did not miss his Father, but simply that he felt he had more to do here than he would in Father’s lab - especially when Father likely had a newer version of him by now. Bucky seemed soothed by the time that he used to work on Tony and that, in turn, made Tony feel useful.
He liked it.
His reactivation was brought on by someone unfamiliar this time and the person jumped back with an “Oh, shit” as he realized he’d activated him. “Sorry, man, I was just looking at Bucky’s work,” the man said and Tony studied him for a long moment. He’d heard the voice before, on the other end of a phone line talking Bucky through an episode.
“Sam?” he asked, head tilting to the side.
“Yeah, that’s me,” the man chuckled, looking a bit awkward as he stood there. Tony was getting better at reading emotions on the humans around him after enough time doing research and speaking with other AIs.
Tony wasn’t sure what to say next. It didn’t seem as if Bucky was in the room, which could mean any number of things. He wasn’t typically active without his Bucky around, so this was out of his recent realm of reference.
Sam seemed almost as unsure as he was. “So just how sentient are you? Bucky says he’s still not sure.” Ignoring that the question seemed a bit rude - like asking a human how intelligent they were - it was also one that he wasn’t sure how to answer. What was he supposed to measure against? Sure, there were all the typical AI tests, but he passed all those and they didn’t test the extent of AI sentience, not really.
“Many people online mistake me for human,” Tony replied eventually, which wasn’t a true answer to the question even if it had a tangential relation.
“That’s not an answer, man,” Sam replied, but was then distracted by Steve coming out of his bedroom. The two left soon after and Tony stood from his customary seat by the table to go to his Bucky’s room and see if he was there. If he was not, then Tony would simply deactivate again.
He and Steve did not spend too much time together, but Bucky had been called downstairs to fix something and left him alone with the other man, who was an artist. Tony didn’t really understand art; he’d been told it was meant to touch at the emotional core of a human, but as an android that simply didn't apply to him. All he could really say about Steve’s work was that it was technically impressive and aesthetically pleasing.
“What are you drawing?” he asked of the current piece, taking it in on the easel from his position on the couch.
“It’s… well, it’s Bucky,” Steve replied, motioning a bit with his hands.
Tony, however, can’t help but frown. The images on the page are not those of a human no matter what way Tony looks at it. He stands and moves closer to the easel to better take in the work Steve is doing. “I don’t get it,” he stated after some time of failing to understand how the images on the page were meant to be his Bucky.
Steve didn’t seem offended by this, but instead put down his tools for a moment and began motioning to various parts of the image and explaining them. The darkness that overcame Bucky as a result of what had happened to him. The desire he had deep down to help people. The way he lifted those around him up. Tony now saw all of those in the images that Steve had chosen and he smiled as he took in the piece with a new eye.
It was his Bucky; his Bucky’s essence. And it was beautiful.
It was a scream that reactivated him this time; he had reprogrammed himself to respond in such a way when Steve had needed to leave town for his art show. Steve always woke when Bucky did when he was home, according to Bucky, and Tony did not like the idea of his Bucky being alone after one of his episodes.
Tony stood from his seat, making his way to Bucky’s bedroom and opening the door. He walked in carefully, picking his way across the floor in the darkness until he is near the curled shape of Bucky in the corner of the room. Bucky was shaking, curled around himself as if trying to keep his pieces inside his cavity.
“Bucky? You’re in your apartment and everything is okay,” he said, unsure what the proper thing was to say in this situation. He should have asked or looked it up before it came to this, but he hadn’t thought of that and now he couldn’t be sure of how to help his Bucky.
He knelt down on the ground next to Bucky and reached out, hand coming down gently on his shoulder. Bucky flinched and looked up at him. “Tony?” he asked, voice shaking in a way that Tony had never heard before.
“Yes,” he replied, scooting closer to the man.
His Bucky tensed for a long moment before curling up against Tony. He had never held a human before, but he had seen them hold each other. He wrapped his arms around his Bucky and pulled him into his chest. They sat there quietly for long moments until Bucky had calmed enough to pull away.
“Would you like to watch a movie?” Tony asked. He didn’t have anything else to say.
Tony grinned at Bucky as he worked on the knee joint that had still been giving him trouble. “You’re actually pretty good at this,” he complimented, “Maybe you could get a job with Father.” He couldn’t be sure that Father would respond well to Tony showing up with Bucky and telling him about this little misadventure, but he was fairly certain that Father would at least be able to see his Bucky’s talent.
“This is just somethin’ I do. I don’t have a fancy degree like all the guys at Stark,” Bucky replied, his cheeks turning slightly red. Tony had never seen a human blush up close before and he was fascinated by it. Something in him curled possessively at the image and this was His Bucky. He couldn’t see himself going back to Father now and leaving Bucky behind.
This was affection.
It was more than simple fondness; Tony looked at Bucky and saw something precious to him. He’d never had something or someone of his own like that before and he wasn’t quite sure what everything inside of him was saying, but he knew that he felt things for the human that he hadn’t even known he was capable of feeling. That he didn’t really have words for.
He’d had affection for Father of course, and he still did, but this affection curled differently inside his code. This was something important and he would not be giving it up anytime soon.
Tony was nervous as they stood outside Stark Tower. It was another new feeling and he reached to grip His Bucky’s hand. People always did that when they needed support or comfort, and that was how he felt now. Bucky gave him a confused look, but let him grab his hand and together they walked inside the building. He’d never come in through the front door before, and he wasn’t sure where exactly he needed to go for a few moments before he got the blueprints correct in his head.
He led His Bucky to the proper elevator and entered the proper code and they were rising into the upper levels, up towards Father’s office
“Tony!” the secretary gasped at their exit from the elevator.
He smiled at her. “I am here to see Father. My Bucky has fixed me,” he informed and a short time later they were allowed into the office, Bucky flushing again at his side. Howard was sitting at his desk and Tony found himself smiling wider at the site. It had been some time since he’d seen Father and he had missed him, even among the new friends that he had been making.
“I figured you’d deactivated,” Howard said.
Tony shook his head. “I almost did, but then My Bucky found me. He’s been repairing me,” he said, smiling over at Bucky.
This seemed to intrigue Father, and he stood to come closer to them. “Well, let’s see how he did.”
Two hours later His Bucky had a new job and the two of them went back home. Father had already activated another android for his lab, and he said that Tony was free to continue his adventures in development as long as he checked in. Father was fascinated by the emotions and Tony was… proud.
Bucky’s new job was clearly stressful to him and it left Tony alone far more than he had been before, so it was difficult to be happy about it after the initial thrill had worn off. His Bucky wasn’t around as much, so he felt more useless than he had been. When His Bucky was around he was exhausted from the people and the work, meaning they didn’t get as much time together as Tony would have liked. He spent more time with Steve than before, learning about art as he watched him work. He got to know Sam a bit better. He started meeting the neighbors.
But none of them were His Bucky.
The time he had with His Bucky was more precious than before and as such they spent much of it finding things to do with just them. Whether it was movies or video games or taking Bucky to try various foods he’d never been able to before, they spent much of their time with just the other when they could. Tony enjoyed these outings and each time they were alone together he felt the affection for His Bucky inside of him growing.
His favorite nights were those where he and His Bucky curled up on the couch together watching old movies. Over time they had gradually moved closer and closer until they now sat leaning against each other every time, with His Bucky’s arm wrapped around his shoulders to hold him close.
They were watching The Wizard of Oz this time and Tony found the Tin Man, specifically, to be quite enchanting. “Do I have a heart?” he asked quite suddenly after the Tin Man finished singing.
Bucky turned towards him quickly, looking a little flustered at the question. Tony was getting far better at reading human expressions now that he had more friends. “What do you mean?” His Bucky asked.
“I know that I don’t in the biological sense of the word - I have a power source, but that’s not the same thing…” He frowned as he tapped on the arc reactor. “But in the human sense of the word. Do I… feel? The way humans do? I have emotions, but are they… real?”
“Of course they’re real. You’re the most advanced AI ever built. You’ve developed them on your own. You react to the world around you. I’ve seen you feel things, Tony. You have a heart, in the human sense,” Bucky replied, voice fierce the way it always got when he stepped in to protect Tony from anti-android people on their outings.
Tony smiled and curled back into His Bucky’s side. “Cool.”
His feelings were changing again.
Tony wasn’t quite sure how to describe them, but every time he looked at His Bucky, he felt so overwhelmingly happy. Every time His Bucky was upset, he felt a need to protect him. Every time His Bucky smiled, Tony felt as if he could fly.
It was ridiculous.
If these were the kinds of things that humans were always dealing with, it was no wonder that they never got anything done as quickly as they should have.
His Bucky was grinning at him again, then ducking his head to finish fixing the wiring in Tony’s chest. Tony smiled as he watched Bucky’s hands work, taking in the new confidence happily - His Bucky had learned so much in his time at Father’s company.
“Bucky?” Tony asked as he crept into the bedroom. He had heard Bucky scream, but he couldn’t see him in the room until he rounded the bed to see His Bucky pressed carefully into a corner where he was barely visible. “Bucky…”
His Bucky flinched away from him and something in Tony hurt at that. It was pain, there was no other way to describe it. Tony had only ever read about pain before and he gasped at the strength of the feeling, falling to his knees and crawling the rest of the way towards His Bucky. Slowly, ever so slowly, as Bucky watched him with wide, wary eyes.
“It’s me, Tony,” he whispered, stopping directly in front of His Bucky.
There was still a wild look in the man’s eyes, but slowly his hand reached out to trace across Tony’s face and the touch made the pain start to fade and Tony felt like he would cry in relief, were he able to, as His Bucky pulled him in tightly against his chest. Tony wrapped his arms around the man in turn and they sat in the corner of the room until the sun began rising, chasing away whatever demons had come to His Bucky in the night.
His Bucky is teaching him to dance.
Tony had never really understood this particular ritual of humans, but as His Bucky’s arms pull him close to lead him through the steps, he thought he could begin to understand. The world always felt better and more manageable when he had His Bucky close by, and the movements to the beat of the music had a certain appeal.
He grinned up at His Bucky as they started the dance over and laughed as he was spun around and pulled back against His Bucky’s chest. There was a giddiness in his code as he followed the steps over and over again until Bucky appeared to begin to tire and simply wrapped his arms around Tony to pull him close and rested their foreheads together.
“Tony?” His Bucky said quietly and Tony stared up into his eyes with a smile reserved only for His Bucky. Suddenly His Bucky’s lips were pressed to his own. Tony had read about kissing and seen it happen, but never had he thought it would be a thing he would participate in. He was not an android built for that kind of thing.
But His Bucky’s lips were against his and Tony pressed up against him in turn, arms wrapping tighter around His Bucky’s neck as they kissed. Tony’s code felt warm and happy and his affection for His Bucky blossomed as he opened his mouth under the press of the man’s tongue.
For the first time in Tony’s life, he couldn’t tell exactly how much time had passed before they pulled away from the kiss, grinning at each other from scant inches apart.
Kisses were fun. His Bucky had shown him many different kinds of kisses and Tony was developing a fondness for them all. Steve seemed mostly amused by the two of them engaging in such things, looking on with a fondness that had only recently developed for Tony in addition to that he had clearly had for Bucky since before Tony had been in the picture.
Tony was enjoying this new thing to explore, and he and His Bucky kissed in the mornings and over dinner and at the movies and before His Bucky went to bed at night. Some nights Tony laid down to deactivate for the night in Bucky’s bed with him, exchanging kisses until His Bucky was too tired to stay awake and Tony would smile before shutting down as well - there was no point in being awake when His Bucky wasn’t.
When he had told Father about these things, he had seemed shocked and then indicated that he hadn’t expected Tony’s emotional range to expand so rapidly and fully. Tony was glad that he was still useful for Father’s work in that way, since he wasn’t in the lab any more, but he was also glad to share all that he liked about His Bucky.
They were laying in His Bucky’s bed on a Sunday morning exchanging lazy kisses and laughter when suddenly he knew what all the extra warmth and affection inside his code was. He hadn’t had a word to describe it perfectly, and that had been bothering him for some time now. His Bucky was the most important thing that Tony had ever had, and the idea of being able to describe that feeling in a way that others understood had been unreachable until this moment, in His Bucky’s arms.
“Bucky?” he said, to get His Bucky’s attention.
“Yeah?” His Bucky grinned, causing Tony to grin in turn.
“I love you,” he replied and His Bucky seemed to light up at the words, pulling him into a fierce kiss.
“I love you, too, Tony,” His Bucky grinned, holding to Tony tightly.
Yes. This was love.